


our natural state is drowning

by Wildehack (tyleet)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon typical darkness, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 12:37:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20724329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyleet/pseuds/Wildehack
Summary: That isn’t Daisy Tonner, she thinks, and hates herself for thinking it.





	our natural state is drowning

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @things-with-teeth on tumblr! :)
> 
> Title is from Amanda Palmer's "Drowning in the Sound."

Daisy is always cold to the touch these days. She obviously thinks Basira hasn’t noticed, but she has: Daisy drowns herself in bulky jumpers but still sits hunched in on herself, arms crossed in front of her chest. She’s shivering right now and pretending she isn’t, tapping at a statement with a pencil and staring vacantly at nothing, her jaw clenched with the effort of staying still.    
  
“D’you want my scarf?” Basira asks, and hates that it comes out almost accusatory.   
  
Daisy blinks, comes back into herself for an instant. “What?”    
  
“My scarf,” Basira says, and gestures at the smooth cotton wrap she’d worn on the walk to the shops, still hanging around her coat on the rack. “You look cold.”    
  
“I’m fine,” Daisy dismisses her, weary with repetition. She shivers again.    
  
“You’re cold,” Basira corrects, and stands up to get the scarf. She wonders briefly if Daisy will protest, catch her arm when she goes to drop it over her shoulders, her grip too-tight on Basira’s wrist, her face lit up with a little ember of the old fire. It does still happen, from time to time.    
  
Instead, Daisy looks up at her with fever-bright eyes as Basira settles the scarf around her, wrapping her up without ever quite making skin contact. When Basira steps back, she pulls the cotton more tightly around herself, and says nothing.    
  
That isn’t Daisy Tonner, she thinks, and hates herself for thinking it.    
  
*   
She knows Daisy spends a lot of time with Jon. With Melanie, too, but _ lots  _ of time with Jon--more than Basira would really like, given what Jon is.    
  
“He’s not gonna hurt me,” Daisy says whenever Basira points this out, and then gives Basira a tired, defiant look, as if daring her to contradict her. “And I could still stop him if he tried.”    
  
“He doesn’t have to touch you to hurt you,” Basira says, thinking of Floyd Matheru and Manuela Dominguez, how they’d both looked like the words were being torn out of their throats, how neither of them could really even be angry with him until it was over. Daisy sighs at her, like Basira’s the one being unreasonable.    
  
“It’s fine,” Daisy says, like that’s the end of it. And so Basira keeps finding her in Jon’s office, pacing like a caged animal, or sat beside him with her feet up on the desk. He doesn’t seem to mind, desperate for sympathy as he is. Once she comes in and finds Jon reading a statement while Daisy sleeps soundly on the desk, her head pillowed in one arm, her free hand clasped loosely around Jon’s wrist.   
  
“What happened here,” Basira asks flatly, and Jon sighs.    
  
“What’s it look like?” he responds in a low voice, clearly trying not to wake Daisy up. “She’s exhausted, Basira.”    
  
Daisy slept for eight hours the night before--or at least she was lying in the cot beside Basira for eight hours, breathing shallowly while Basira sat up next to her and worked, one hand every so often playing over the knobs of Daisy’s spine. But the bruises under her eyes were worse when she woke up, not better.    
  
“She doesn’t need  _ sleep _ ,” Jon says, and Basira glares at him.    
  
“Stop it,” she says, and he rolls his eyes.   
  
“I’m not in your head,” he says impatiently. “I just know what you’re thinking.”    
  
“She’s doing better,” Basira says.    
  
He gives her an incredulous stare, and then sighs again. “Yes,” he says, sounding resigned. “Of course. She’s doing better.”    
  
*   
  
Basira isn’t stupid.    
  
She knows Daisy is dangerously weak, barely there in the cot next to her except for her too-bright eyes, glittering in the dark. She knows it isn’t right, how tight Daisy’s skin is over her bones, or how she sways on her feet sometimes.    
  
But Basira has to believe it will get better. She can’t believe that even this world would be so cruel: to give her Daisy back and then take her away, make Basira watch her fade slowly into nothing.    
  
She overhears Jon talking to Daisy in the break room, when they think they’re alone:    
  
“I’m not as strong as you,” he’s saying, hoarse, hunched over a half-prepared cup of tea. “I’m not.”    
  
“It’s not  _ weak _ to want to live,” Daisy tells him. “Just human.”    
  
“Ironic,” he mutters.    
  
“We can’t hurt people anymore,” she says softly. “That’s the only rule.”    
  
Basira leaves as silently as she came, her jaw clenched so hard it aches, heart knocking unhappily against her ribs.   
  
*   
  
The thing is, she was always scared of Daisy. From the moment she met her--tall, terrifying Daisy, with her bloody-knuckled fists and her eyes full of rage--Basira was afraid of what Daisy would do, what harm she’d cause and what danger she’d drag Basira into. And she’d _ loved _ it. Daisy terrified her and Basira did her best to hold her back but loved being shoved right up to the edge, the hot clarity that Daisy pushed her towards, a perfect partnership.    
  
She was also afraid of Daisy’s hand fisted in her hair, Daisy biting at her mouth and shoving the heel of her hand between Basira’s thighs, afraid in a way that meant her whole body was tight and thrilled and expectant. Fear like the jolt in her stomach before being dropped by a rollercoaster, fear like leaning too far out on a motorbike riding a curve, fear like climbing up to the fifth orgasm she wasn’t sure she could take. She loved being afraid of Daisy.    
  
Being scared _ for  _ Daisy is new. 

She hates it.    
  
*   
  
“Don’t listen to the blood,” Jon murmurs to Daisy in his office, the door slightly ajar.   
  
“Listen to the quiet,” Daisy finishes, sighing.    
  
*    
  
Daisy hobbles down to the cot in document storage after Herbert and Montauk attack, doing her best to pretend like she isn’t worn down to the bone.    
  
“You all right?” Basira asks, because she has to. 

  
“Fine,” Daisy says, and visibly bites back a wince. “Absolutely fine.” She sits down carefully on the edge of the cot, and shifts one of the statements in Basira’s pile into her lap, although she isn’t going to read it.    
  
Basira can’t bear it, but she makes herself breathe in and out on a ten-count before she puts her book down.    
  
“I need you to know something,” she says finally, breaking the quiet.    
  
Daisy looks up at her, pale eyebrows raised. “And what’s that?”    
  
Basira reaches out carefully and catches Daisy’s chin between her forefinger and thumb, makes sure she can’t look away. “Our choices are not monsterhood or death,” Basira says, feeling the words well up from somewhere deep. “We get better than that.”    
  
This close, she can’t look away from Daisy either, which means she sees Daisy’s eyes go pink. “Do we?” Daisy asks, rasping slightly.    
  
“We do,” Basira promises, and presses a hard kiss to Daisy’s temple. “There’s a third option, and I need you--” her voice cracks here, despite herself-- “I need you to help me find it, okay?”    
  
Daisy draws in an unsteady breath, and Basira clutches her head in both hands and says “ _ Please _ ,” into the skin of Daisy’s forehead, and Daisy makes another soft noise.    
  
“Okay,” Daisy says a moment later, in a whisper. Her hands skate uncertainly over Basira’s shoulders. “Okay, I’ll help.”    
  
“Thank you,” Basira says, and it comes out almost voiceless. She kisses Daisy in the hopes that her throat will stop aching, but it doesn’t help; she kisses Daisy until her entire chest is tender from her throat to her ribs.    
  
Daisy’s the one who eventually breaks away, leaving Basira’s mouth to brush a kiss against the thin skin of Basira’s eyelids. “It’s late,” she says quietly. “You should get some sleep.”    
  
“Stay with me,” Basira says, and it comes out not quite an order, not quite a plea.    
  
Daisy just nods. “All right, love,” she says quietly, and carefully tucks Basira into her arms. “All right.” 

  
Daisy is still cold to the touch, and she still trembles finely in Basira’s arms--but she’s there when Basira wakes up. That’s enough, Basira tells herself. That has to be enough. 

  
For a while she almost believes it. 


End file.
